[OSM-talk] [Osmf-talk] OSM Uganda Local Chapter application

[Ciarán Staunton]

I wasn't initially going to comment on this except to say that there are
brilliant Ugandan mappers (317 contributed yesterday!). This community has
been super active for several years now, and those folks deserve to have a
chapter to strengthen their organisational efforts. Nevertheless, chapters
should have strong governance arrangements - and those arrangements
should include open membership, community control, recall of Directors, and
transparent ways of knowing that the Directors are acting in the interests
of the community. I can only assume that the Ugandan community are happy to
engage around these issues.

In late 2018 the Ireland OSM community applied for local chapter status
with me as Ireland's liaison on the applicant side. Within that there were
three junctures of 3-5 week email reply delays, and partial replies that
fell short of providing Ireland's community any clear sense of what was
driving the deliberation process in the background. As liaison I was given
the task or guessing at what was in fact happening for reports back
(including the 2019 AGM) Our application didn't appear on osmf meeting
agendas for example. It took from December 2018 to August 2019 to get
through the application process. I would hope that people commenting here
would have the good sense to recognise that a chapter is never frustrated
by substantive engagement on clearly advertised criteria, but it certainly
will be frustrated by poor communication and inexplicable delays.


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[OSM-talk] Local Chapter application - Ireland

[Ciarán Staunton]

Hi Everyone,
It really is heartening to see the overwhelming positive reaction to OSM
Ireland's chapter application. I am party to this application, but since
there was a discussion I am permitting myself to just be a mapper and
community member in a couple of comments.

On the island of Ireland issue: we did this because mappers from Northern
Ireland were already engaged with us, and we even held a meetup in Belfast.
As a formal structure nobody was going to exclude people who have already
given so much to the informal network that has existed for a decade.

In any event there was detailed consultation with OSMUK who told us: "For
the avoidance of doubt, OSM UK is supportive of the inclusion of Northern
Ireland in OSM Ireland in addition to it's existing inclusion within the
OSM UK defined region." With this level of co-operation already in place
between OSMUK and OSMIRL we could look at having a joint *SOTM* in Belfast
in 2021 or 2022 to commemorate the centennial placement of the border on
the island, and to prove that mappers transcend everything.
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